Sunday Sermon on Wednesday

But first - Bottled Water ...

Congratulations to all Canadians who have seen the folly of bottled water and have stopped buying it. But I have bad news for you - you haven't stopped buying it. The gummint is doing it for you.

======================

And, oh yeah - Thuh Conomy, again ...

Harper can crow all he wants about how Canada is faring better in the recession than other countries, but "only 45 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women can expect the EI system to help them if they lose their jobs" (Canwest) - and we have the Liberals to thank for that, as well as Harper for whom it apparently causes no sleepless nights.

Reportedly, there are 1.4 million Canadians out of work and "hundreds of thousands more will lose their job over the next year".

Jobs, that should be jobs! Plural, with an "s"! It really ticks me off when I'm expected to watch my spelling and grammar if I want to be seen as a credible blogger while the recognized media grow lazier and sloppier every day.

All things considered, it's small wonder they want us to worry about swine flu instead:

Update from reader "greathouse" - Only 7 swine flu deaths, not 152, says WHO
As stated by the BBC.

===================

And finally - The "White" Man's Religion ...

Interesting blog: "Ifyoudontgetoffyourarsewerealldead". It's angry at Jews, Muslims and politicians alike (except for the BNP - British Nationalist Party which the blogger says would keep the races separate and distinct but treat them all fairly).

I can't help enjoying the colourful language this blogger uses to express his pique, and there's no doubt he has it straight about such things as the 7/7 bombings and the swine flu scare, but the level of anger displayed is probably mild compared to what he holds in check, and what seethes beneath the surface of many members of working class "white" "Christian" society.

Global capitalism is bringing to light a segment of "white" male society whose only claim to a sense of esteem has been its superior religion and skin colour, and which now feels threatened by increased numbers of "others" in its midst. You'd think it would give these poor jokers a better understanding of how it feels to be dominated by "white" "Christianity", but instead their frustration and rage are making them as potentially dangerous to themselves and others as they perceive their enemies to be.

Strange that so many of them deny evolution.

Some of these "white" males have actually chosen women from the "others" for wives, an outward statement that they aren't really racist but merely factual when they blame everything on the Jews, the Islamists, or the Latino invasion.

But since they believe the "white" male is superior to all, they no doubt hold an Old Testament-ish attitude toward women (similar to the Orthodox Jewish view), are frustrated by "white" women's demands for an equal say in the relationship, and are, of course, in competition with the male prowess they secretly fear exists in the "other".

It's all very complicated, but the taking of women from the "other" is approved of by God, so best not to look too closely at the psychological factors behind it. In ancient Biblical warfare against other tribes and races, the comeliest women were always brought home as booty, as slaves for household and sexual duties.

This type of angry "white" male (and probably the women they dominate) also sees commies everywhere. Even Obama is a commie, or a neo-commie, and has "godless commie" connections, and all Jews are commies too. This is a terribly irrational reaction to anything non-"Christian" in view of the fact that it was the commies who improved conditions for North American and UK workers. Time will show, however, that Obama has about as much real concern for the rights of workers as the above blogger has for refugees.

The cruelest slave owners in the US, as we all well know, saw "blacks" as dumb, dirty animals, but didn't hesitate to use "black" women for their own pleasure. This is the element in the US that is itching to help Obama to the pearly gates - and don't think they don't fantasize about Michelle.

When you see videos on YouTube about Obama kissing Hillary or kissing Joe Biden's wife, not to mention Bush kissing Michelle, you are witnessing evidence of that old, simultaneous attraction to and fear of the "other".

The machine behind Obama is prepared for a backlash. But judging from Joe Biden's early comments about Obama, I'd say many of them may have been cut from the same cloth. It's almost as if they want a civil war.

=====

There's a study been done to show that religion protects against stress, but I'd say it merely protects against certain kinds of guilt.

In the comments section of the above article, Andre from Ottawa hits the nail on the head:

In this case, religion is the opiate of the masses. To be more specific, the placebo of the masses. Feeling that it's the next life that really matters, that you are not personally responsible to society (just ask big sky dadddy for forgiveness and everything is good) will do well to alleviate feelings of anxiety.

And Ben from Edmonton asks an excellent question:

Is it better to have lower stress and a flagrant disregard for reality, or higher stress and a true understanding of your own being?

Related:

Religion is the Xanax of the People

Stroop Test

=====

The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Blog has a neat entry under the heading: Bible Study for Atheists. It's an interview with David Plotz (don't laugh too hard or you might), author of "Good Book", about his year spent reading the Hebrew Bible.

Plotz has some interesting observations about the value of religion in general and the horrific OT God, and in the interview he also makes a simple, honest statement about Israel that every member of the religious right ought to ponder seriously:

"One of the oddest realizations I had while reading the Bible is that modern Israel occupies land that was not generally Biblical Israel. Modern Israel is where ancient Israel's enemies lived."

Pig slop for the Masses

The Globe and Mail thinks we'll swallow any old swill:

They cannot say why those infected in Mexico, where the outbreak is known as la gripe porcina, are between the ages of 20 and 50 - not a population normally vulnerable to flu. Infectious disease specialists also don't yet know why the six confirmed cases in Canada and the 40 in the United States appear to be more mild.

"This flu has never before been seen in pigs or humans, which means we don't know its capabilities," said Donald Low, medical director of Ontario's public health laboratories and chief microbiologist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital...

We don't have the epidemiology to define whether it's seasonal flu or more like the flu of 1968, where one in every 100 people died."

You know what? I remember 1968 vividly. That was the year my brother got married, and Trudeau won the leadership of the Liberal party. We moved from Kemptville to Ottawa and my youngest started pre-kindergarten. It was my 10th wedding anniversary that year. I stayed home for a while and studied up on nutrition; taking pride in saving money while feeding my family well. (Four big bags of groceries cost $25.00). I started painting in earnest that year; I still have the one I did of a proud African woman hanging on my foyer wall. We bought an old piano, and I taught my kids to play by assigning different colours to the notes and placing stickers with those colours on the corresponding piano keys.

But you know, I don't recall a single solitary thing about a flu pandemic - in fact we didn't even know that word back then - and if one in 100 people had died, don't you think I would have known someone who did?

The more I read about this, the more I think Mexico was a disgusting experiment and other places are getting the fallout. If it affected only people between the ages of 20 and 50, and since infants and old people tend to be given flu shots, what else are we supposed to derive from that except that everybody should get flu shots and make big pharm even richer.

The Globe goes on to describe how to protect yourself against the flu and then it sort of degenerates into the techniques of a survivalist in case of nuclear warfare or an alien invasion. Bizarre!

And now, just to confuse the 20 to 50 issue, here's the Guardian telling us a story about the suspected source of the outbreak - a four year old boy in a Mexican village (and now we're getting closer to my earlier contention that it was only poor Mexicans who were infected - dispensable people in the minds of the Malthusian capitalists!).

Rest assured, before this is over the real source of it will be obscured by conflicting "expert" opinion, just as is the whole issue of global warming, but the main goal will have been achieved - to make people afraid, to make them doubt their own instincts, to make them want to narrow down their lives, to make them dependent on government for everything.

The WHO says it's

"unstoppable" but "closing international borders would have little impact now".

What they mean is that it's not necessary because so many people have been scared into staying put until this is over.

I'm here to tell you that it is stoppable, and you know why? Because the Montreal Gazette reports that:

More than 3,000 migrant workers are expected to come to Quebec this summer to work on farms around the province.

If these are commercial factory farms, you can bet we will all be assured the pandemic is over and some agency will be named the hero - like Baxter, probably, the company that created the Frankenstein mixture of avian and swine flu, then had a "mishap" with it, and then for its efforts was awarded the contract to find the antidote for the pandemic!

Can you imagine the boon this is to big pharm? All pigs will now have to be vaccinated, just as all cows must be. And all people regardless of age will be scared into flu jab lines. Forever!

Now look at this if you still don't think the agenda is to keep populations in constant fear:

Air Force One flyover sparks panic in New York

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said typically a flight like this would be publicised to avoid causing a panic, but they were under orders not to in this case.

The FAA also alerted an official in the mayor's office, but he didn't tell Bloomberg, who said he first learned about it when his "BlackBerry (mobile phone) went off crazy with people complaining about it".

They were "under orders not to" let New Yorkers know! The White House was involved, the state of New York knew about it, and even an official in the mayor's office, but they all kept their mouths shut. And these are the governments they want us to turn to in times of trouble and uncertainty!

If you don't think your government is trying to drive you crazy, then you are already crazy!

It's all a con game; first you see 'em, then you don't ...

Remember what a bang up job the media did of convincing us these men were terrorists? Well, of course they were not, and they have been freed, now that 7/7 has so thoroughly done its job to allow police harassment, detention without charges, and ubiquitous camera surveillance.

See Video: 7/7 - Mind the Gap
See Also: Ludicrous Diversion
See Also: 7/7 Ripple Effect

And then see: Montreal - The next terror target

Somehow I don't think the mind games are working as well as hoped, so we should now expect a more concerted effort.

The Swine Behind the Flu

FLU 'ODDITIES' BREAKING NEWS

All the weird stuff you can handle related to the current flu scare, courtesy of Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG).

When Donald Rumsfeld is making a profit from the sale of Tamiflu and the very company that turned Avian and Swine flu into a lethal mixture and then had a "mishap" is going to make zillions producing a "cure", and the military are being sent to the Mexico border ... you have to think that maybe the predictions of the "conspiracy theorists" were not so whacko after all.

It's in Spain now, not too far from where my grandchildren live.

And headed for the UK, of course, where (coincidentally?) one of Gordon Brown's close advisors recommended culling the British herd by 50 percent.

I'm not making this up. People in "authority" are actually saying this stuff out loud. That's how confident (or insane) they have become.

=====

Thanks to John for this:

Link Found Between GMOs & Deadly Tuberculosis

By deliberately ignoring the precautionary principle and refusing to implement mandatory labeling of GM products, this government allows its citizens to be used as guinea pigs, sacrificing the nation’s health for corporate greed. There is no such thing as “substantial equivalence.”

This phrase was coined by scientifically illiterate lawyers of the biotech industry and in 1992 written into law by G.H.W. Bush, who proclaimed GM plants to be substantially equivalent” to their traditional counterparts and therefore did not need any special health safety study or testing. Ethical scientists and researchers consider this the biggest farce and fraud ever committed in the science field.

This how the engineering of our food, reducing its nutritional value, is actually just another form of bio-genocide.

Thanks to my daughter for this:

The Future of Food - What every person should know

=====

VIDEO: 20 + States Declaring Sovereignty Under the 10th Amendment!!! Pennsylvania State Rep Sam Rohrer

People in some of these states are ready for civil war. And so is the gummint - that's no doubt one of the purposes of the FEMA camps - that and possibly to quarantine undesirables deliberately infected with communicable diseases.

One commenter suggests that this is actually racism disguised as a tax revolt and I'm inclined to agree. I've said all along that the US will not abide a Black president, and sure enough the neo-nazis are buzzing. But that doesn't mean that Obama will be a good guy victim, not by a long shot. He is a willing front for the rape of the globe by fair means or fowl (as in avian/swine flu cocktails), and the tax problem is only one of his handlers' crimes.

This isn't appearing in the regular news, but here's a list of states in various stages of carrying out declarations under the 10th Amendment with links to their official websites.

Of course, if there's a "national emergency" the constitution will be declared toast and there will be no sections under which to declare anything ... except maybe civil war.

=====

Speaking of criminals:

Another Chief of Staff has flown the Ottawa Mayor's coop as his boss heads into a nine week leave in order to attend his own trial on charges of attempted bribery and influence peddling - using his connection with federal MP John Baird to offer a competing mayoral candidate a reward for withdrawing from the race.

See YYC resource page on this issue.

His interim replacement, Councillor Michel Bellemare, is said to be "a very thoughtful well-respected person". I don't think anybody ever said that about O'Brien - just that he had made a lot of money running his tech company and therefore should be quite capable of running the City like a business. Monkey business.

To show the level of respect for O'Brien, here's a whole website set up to bring him down.

Larry O'Brien is an example of how the global capitalism agenda can use the media to catapult handpicked virtual unknowns into power at all three levels of government, federal, provincial and municipal.

After and Before:

Larry shortly after being sworn in as mayor ...














... and Larry just before his trial begins. He looks as if he might be starting to see the seriousness of it all - finally!

Swine flu hits the fan

From Mareta in Europe:

About the swine flu stuff - looks like it's getting serious.

I love how it says that Obama was in Mexico recently, but don't worry, he was never in any danger. (That's 'cause they didn't infect him with it ??? just those poor Mexicans and a few focal points in the US?)

Anyway, there is an interesting point here with regard to that Avian flu scare about a month ago in Czech Republic ("Are ya sceered yet" Item 2 - Feb. 27 and "Doncha Just Wonder" Item 5 - "If pigs could fly ..." Apr. 25 - YayaCanada), that "mishap" by the company Baxter: one of the strains mixed up in the cocktail was H3N2 - Swine flu (Wikipedia).

And remember how it was such a close call because it may have provided a way to make bird flu more dangerous for people (Toronto Sun)? Well isn't it interesting that now there is swine flu infecting people in Mexico, US and now Canada. There are claims now that it has even reached Scotland.

I also remember that Bush made legislation that protected vaccine manufacturers from legal action if a vaccine produced to combat an epidemic caused harm. Of course Barry's government now is preparing to fire up the vaccine production line (or wait, maybe it's already ready and waiting..!) to make vaccines against this strain of potentially pandemic (they hope) swine flu.

Everyone who follows stuff about the NWO is looking at this as the beginning of the cull. One forum heading was " Head for the hills...new swine flu "epidemic" set to attack and destroy" They are talking about quarantines, travel restrictions, round ups for vaccination, FEMA coffins. Good grief. Has it finally begun in earnest?

YYC: Looks like the Toronto Sun article was setting it up to look accidental:

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” ... Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

And guess who's been awarded the contract for producing the antidote - Baxter!

From my inbox

(1) Timmy Timbit sets me straight on the issue of feeding 10 billion people. (See yesterday under heading (2) Regarding the Plot Against the Poor)

Regarding how we are going to feed 10 billion people on planet earth. If we rely on "Green Revolution" technology, we are truly sunk. That's because the "Green Revolution" was based on turning fossil fuels into food.

See this snip from the article "Eating Fossil Fuels"

The Green Revolution

In the 1950s and 1960s, agriculture underwent a drastic transformation commonly referred to as the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution resulted in the industrialization of agriculture. Part of the advance resulted from new hybrid food plants, leading to more productive food crops. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%.4 That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation.
The Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an average of 50 times the energy input of traditional agriculture.5 In the most extreme cases, energy consumption by agriculture has increased 100 fold or more.6
In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).7

I think if we want to build sustainable societies we are going to need to move to a truely "Green" revolution that works on much smaller scales (i.e. more small, family farms as opposed to fewer big, factory farms) and works in cooperation with nature instead of attempting, as in the industrialized agricultural model, to brutalize nature and overcome nature by force and the application of massives amount of energy and artificial chemicals and fertilizers. The Institute of Science in Society in the UK has on their web site some informative articles on how low energy-input, traditional (and sustainable) farming practices in various parts of the world have been incorporated along with with up to date knowledge and non-GM plant breeding techniques to show the efficacy and long term sustainability of this type of non-industrialized, agricultural model.

See the ISIS articles on sustainable agriculture here.

Unfortunately, as we know, many of our politicians along with scientists and University research facilities are in the back pockets of massive agri-business, corporate behemoths who have every intention of not loosening but only tightening their already very constricting but profitable (for them) grip on our food supply and to exclude alternative models of agricultural production from receiving any serious consideration.

And of course TT is right as rain! Turning fossil fuels into food is no better an idea than what we are currently doing - turning food (corn) into fuel (ethanol)!

The point I was trying to make yesterday is that blaming overpopulation for the world's problems is a start down a slippery immoral slope, and that only ten years ago "science" was saying that even larger populations could be fed if they were all vegetarians. And it's true - they can be - but not with the methods funded by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations.

Science supported by the corporate agenda deals in half truths, and is, for instance, guilty of saying that the earth is warming at the same time it says it is cooling. (It's also saying that morning sickness means a brighter baby, and it's now gone viral on the Internet with what amounts to merely a rumour, once again blaming the mother for her child's autism - since the old "refrigerator mother" theory proved too laughable - in a desperate bid to take the heat off cashcow vaccines, not to mention chemical pollution).

Last night I watched the documentary "Fed Up! - Genetic Engineering, Industrial Agriculture and Sustainable Alternatives" (on DVD from the library), and was pleased to find that it is available on the Internet in four parts that you can either watch online or download to your hard drive. It discusses the Green Revolution and advocates a return to small farming operations where traditional knowledge is respected, just as some Africans visitors to Canada begged us to allow them.

And if you're wondering where all the honey bees and Monarch butterflies are disappearing to, you'll get the tragic answer!

=========================

(2) From Brian H., Toronto, who comments:

Seems the RCMP is in good company over the pond.

Printing Police Lies

As the tabloids turn their fire onto an unfamiliar target — the unprovoked aggression of Her Majesty’s constabulary — the love affair between the cops and the rightwing press has never been more fragile.

This article is a rich read, chock full of substantiating links. A keeper, for sure.

=========================

(3) From Gary K. in Vancouver who comments:

Must watch!

Incredible grilling of UK diplomat!

BBC reporter for Newsnight, Paxman grills the UK Ambassador on the walk-out. This video wasn't available for anyone outside the UK, and after a few hours, even they couldn't watch it anymore! It is an incredibly important excerpt of a document on the nature of what the journalist clearly recognises as a "stunt" and the Ambassador insists upon calling a "protest", falling all over his own rhetoric in the process.

It seems there was an awful lot more cheering and whistling for Ahmadinejad than we were led to believe.

=========================

(4) From Ron:

[Federal Liberal Party Leader Michael] Ignatieff's father & Israeli Apartheid Lobby

While working for Canada's Deprtment of External Affairs, George Ignatieff also served as a counsellor to the Israeli Apartheid Lobby as represented by the Jewish Agency (see Google book excerpts below).

As Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz points out,

"it's well known that the "national institutions" - the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund - primarily exist to enable institutional discrimination based on ethnicity".

Canada needs to do a Haiti come the next federal election.

=========================

(5) From BeeSting, who asks if I've heard of this:

MSNBC via Crooks and Liars: Another "dirty bomb" scare (VIDEO)

Well, I have now. But since this is the result of an "FBI leak" which the media, for the most part, ignored - probably because the alleged culprit was not a Muslim and was reportedly the son and heir of a Texas millionaire - I'm inclined to chalk it up as just another scare tactic to justify removing democratic freedoms.

(It's also a boost for Jeffrey Lewis' musical career ambitions. Whose kid is he, I wonder?)

See, by now people have forgotten about Robert Jay Goldstein, and their conditioning to exchange freedom for "security" and to feel comforted by Big Brother's watchful eye requires occasional reinforcement.

Some of these stooges they get their stooge wives to shoot and some they get their stooge wives to testify against. Others they drive mad - poor Jose Padilla.

=====

(6) John in Manitoba shows us another form of lie, for similar purposes as noted above:

When We Are Led to Believe a Lie

GM sold 4.4 million vehicles in the U.S. in 1992 and employed 265,000 UAW members.

GM sold 4.5 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2007 and employed 73,000 UAW members.

A company can't make productivity improvements as astounding as that and lose money on labour. Something else is shaking the timbers. Maybe we should question the competitiveness of salary workers? How do they compare with their Japanese counterparts in compensation and achievement? Or more precisely, who's controlling the money?

Yes, by all means, let's believe that auto companies are in need of a welfare handout, and blame it on their generosity to their workers.

DONCHA JUST WONDER?

(1) Thuh Conomy

The Star is full of it today! First let's look at its discussion of Canada's economic system and measures reportedly being taken by the Bank of Canada in apparent contradiction of Harper's own ideas for resolving the crunch.

I don't know, is this the first time the mainstream has admitted that recessions, causing unemployment and ending with overall reduced wages for workers, are deliberately induced and not just an unfortunate cyclical occurrence? That our own Bank of Canada callously benefited corporations and their wealthy shareholders at the expense of the average Canadian?

Through most of the '80s and '90s, the Bank of Canada was the real power in Ottawa. By drastically limiting the growth of the money supply, thereby forcing interest rates up to 20 per cent, it induced one punishing recession in the '80s. Then, using the same techniques, it did the same thing a decade later.

For those thrown out of work, both recessions were disasters. But to the monetarists, they did the job. Double-digit interest rates forced companies out of business, pushed down wages and, eventually, tamed inflation.

At the same time, high interest rates on government debt sent deficits soaring, creating a political climate of fear in which all governments – to the applause of the country's editorial boards – could begin dismantling Canada's social safety net.

What? Is it okay to say this now that we're headed toward control by the World Bank?

It should be clearly noted, by the way, that the Federal Reserve Bank is not the Bank of Canada's "US counterpart" - yet - as the Star article states! The Federal Reserve is a private corporation bedeviling the hell out of (into?) America.

It would seem that the only reason the Bank of Canada is now reacting rather than instigating is that "monetarism" is not dead at all, but in fact has gone global. It's the IMF/WTO/World Bank cabal in charge now; consequently the recession, too, is global with a much wider and even more sinister agenda.

From the Financial Express:

"Across the developing world, we see that conditions of recession are affecting the poorest people, making them even more vulnerable than before to sudden shocks-but also reducing opportunities available to them, and frustrating their hopes," said Justin Yifu Lin, WB's Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Development Economics "This could reverse years of progress, and is nothing less than an emergency for development," added Justin Yifu Lin.

Mock concern for the predicament of the poor is being leveraged to increase the power of the cabal, evidenced by World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick's own words:

"If leaders are serious about creating new global responsibilities or governance, let them start by modernising multilateralism to empower the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank Group to monitor national policies".

You think Harper and Obama (and Iggy and Jack by pathetic default) aren't online with this scenario? You think maybe the Star article should have been headlined: The Life and Death of the Bank of Canada?

=====

(2) Regarding the plot against the poor

One of the things that has so dismayed me recently is having heard from the lips of a local vegetarian "peace" activist that one of the problems is that the world is overpopulated. (You will probably see that same person at a "Make Poverty History" protest, but don't be fooled.)

Yet Nobel Prize Lauriate and architect of the Green Revolution, Dr. Norman Borlaug, stated in 1997 that technology could feed 10 billion people! That was modified by L.T. Evans to "10 million vegetarians" in his 1998 book "Feeding the 10 billion" Here's a descriptive review of his book in PDF format.

It's obvious that there's plenty of room on this planet for more people if we really cared. Heck, if the climate really is warming up (as I find most "peace" activists also believe), then there will be massive territories available for settlement in the northern regions of Canada and Russia.

As it is, one has to wonder if global warming is not just a pretext for global culling. Especially since there's also all this talk about global cooling!

Sadly Related: From the Bullet: How is India?

=====

(3) Israel's not in today

This from the Star will either make you laff or give you the shivers:

Three arrested in Lebanon on Israel spy charges

The Israeli government could not reached for comment on the Jewish Sabbath.

Awkward headline, eh? No, it's not Lebanese spying on Israel; quite the opposite in fact, and not an uncommon occurrence anywhere in the world.

But, conveniently in this case, Israel apparently has no government on Shabat. They couldn't get a trusted Palestinian to answer the phone? Heck, they could get one to spy for them! Unless, maybe, he's an Israeli pretending to be Palestinian.

=====

(4) Election Disaster in South Africa?

I suppose the Star had a reason for this headline:

South Africa's ANC fails to get two-thirds vote

It's true, 65.9% is not exactly two-thirds. But it's hardly a headline-worthy difference. Sup with that?

=========================

(5) If pigs could fly ...

Swine flu outbreaks spark high levels of illness but low death rates in pigs

Low death rates in pigs. Hey! Same with Tasers! (Are the RCMP providing the cocaine?) The original testing, commissioned of course by the people who made the Tasers, was done on pigs and "proved" humans could withstand it. But now that there are serious concerns raised by the public, there's more testing being done on pigs - and that's only a "half million dollar boondoggle" - think how much big pharm is going to make when all pigs have to be vaccinated regardless of how they contracted this weirdly mysterious new brand of "swine flu".

From the Montreal Gazette "Flu Facts":

Swine flu viruses do not normally travel from pigs to people and those who are infected usually have direct exposure to infected pigs. The latest eight cases in the United States did not involve direct exposure.

Swine flu is not transmitted by food and you cannot catch it by eating pork... Vaccines are available to prevent swine influenza in pigs.

Still, the WHO couldn't wait to suggest, via that great fear monger the Boston Globe, that Mexico swine flu has 'pandemic potential'

At least 62 people have died from severe pneumonia caused by a flu-like illness in Mexico, according to WHO. Some of those who died are confirmed to have contracted a type of swine flu known as A/H1N1. That particular flu variant has not previously been seen in pigs or humans, though other types of H1N1 have.

Didja see that? This variant has "not previously been seen in pigs or humans", and only Mexicans have died from it (poor, undernourished Mexicans, no doubt). Draw your own conclusions, but I'm leaning toward, oh, putting it mildly, a scientific so-called mishap? It happens.

=========================

(6) Michelle Mendes: A mystery wrapped in a conundrum

Does the military plan to wait until the public has lost interest before admitting that Michelle Mendes committed suicide?

The military padre pretty much gives it away with this (Globe and Mail):

"Her tragic death has left many of us stunned. She left us with no goodbyes or signs," Padre Martine Bélanger said in an address before pallbearers lifted the fallen soldier's flag-draped casket. "For many of us, our minds and hearts are full of questions as to why," the padre said.

The Globe continues:

"all evidence points toward a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

...

Dianne Mills, who lives next door ... said she had rarely seen Major Mendes or her husband in the past two years. "She was stationed in Ottawa, and then she was in Afghanistan. It was quiet over there. The curtains never moved."

Ms. Mills said the military grapevine had carried a rumour that Major Mendes had come down with an illness. What that might be, she couldn't say: "All we heard was that she was sick. That was it."

From Digital Journal:

[Major Michelle] Mendes ... was among 11 soldiers who were returned to Canada for treatment in September 2006 following a friendly-fire incident that killed one.

Odd that there would be no curtain movement in the home she shared with her husband who lived there and worked in Kingston as a sports coach. Stranger still is that, so far, the media is behaving as if her husband does not exist. Even CKWS, right there in Kingston, didn't bother, apparently, to pick up the phone and talk to him. All the focus is on the parents of this grown-up, married woman.

Maybe the most serious and long term cost of wars is that they preclude a healthy family life for the participants, and it's highly possible that the Mendes marriage fell apart. A failed marriage is tough enough for the average person, but add to that participation in a failed war and the loss by gruesome death of close friends by "friendly fire" ...

A clue may be found here in another Globe article that also quotes a chaplain:

The variety of mental- health professionals made available is too limited, and does not include marriage and family therapists ...

The greatest burden for Michelle Mendes, perhaps, is that she was clearly expected to be perfect to the point where she expected it of herself. Well, listen to what everybody says about her, what a caretaker she was, how she mommied everybody by bringing them homebaked cookies and pie, how she cheered everybody up, what a "little angel" she was - and I have to tell you, if you had to keep up a show like that and not be able to keep your friends from dying, sooner or later you'd want out, too.

=========================

(7) Goodbye Posse Comitatus

Here's something else you won't find the mainstream dwelling on:

via WRH April 23

VIDEO: Martial Law in America

What kind of soldier is not going to end up with mental problems if he has to treat his own fellow citizens as the enemy?

UP A LAZY RIVER WITH THE ED SUN

From the Edmonton Sun: Afghanistan Matters

Canada is making a huge difference, our efforts are not a waste ... so many Canadians, tired of a conflict in which we seem to be treading water, expressed how disappointed they are, how they were against the mission from the start, and how the only sensible and right thing now is to pull the troops out. Don't wait for 2011. Do it now. My question: What about those women? Saudi Arabian women likely wouldn't dream of marching through the streets in defence of their rights. Nor would Kuwaiti women, I would bet. These Afghan women showed incredible courage and hope. We promised we would help them. They believed us. Now we should abandon them?

What an impassioned plea on behalf of the agenda for global fundamentalist capitalism aided by unending war. Now we don't have to wonder what that Afghan women's "protest" was really all about. How much do you suppose those women were paid?

I'd like to know where the writer bought his blinkers, or does he sedate himself with drugs or booze as many "reporters" reportedly do? It must be nice to be able to enthuse about the help given to a few war widows - in a devastated population of 25 million - without having to stop and consider how they became widowed in the first place!

He wants to support 300 women by killing or widowing thousands more? If "tens of thousands of Afghans" - out of 25 million - want us there why weren't they surrounding those women?

(For that matter, if so many Canadians were against the war in the first place, why haven't they been in the streets protesting and educating their fellow citizens, as some of us have been doing since the outset? Or are they merely beginning to chafe at their own discomfort caused by the failing free market economy the wars have been supporting?)

By the writer's twisted logic, we should be sending troops to Israel to stop the practice of treating women according to Old Testament law, and orthodox Jews from throwing stones at bare-armed women.

When so-called journalists upon whom Canadians rely for information are either not aware or are willfully ignoring the fact that the cause of women in Afghanistan is a smoke-screen for the cause of a pipeline and global capitalism, it's little wonder that such travesties are allowed to continue for so long before people finally clue in.

Instead of churning out yet another piece of lazy journalism, the writer might have done a little historical research to find out that in early 2001 the oil companies - once the US backed Mujahadeen had successfully ousted the Soviets - had backed the Taliban financially in the hope of getting a pipeline through Afghanistan from the Caspian (straight through Kandahar where our soldiers are currently dying - coincidence or what?), but were getting discouraged because of the unsettled conditions. Fortunately for them, 9/11 happened just scant months later and there was now an excuse to take over the whole country! Another coincidence, or what? See heading: "The Afghanistan Route" in this Global Security article.

Instead of taking the sanitized tour in Afghanistan, the writer might have spoken with the people who have in-depth experience on the down and dirty side. So far, it's only American veterans speaking out in large numbers - both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are useless tragedies, they say - but eventually we will hear from currently muzzled Canadian veterans as well.

Sadly, those who come back alive will be physically and/or mentally maimed for life - another cost not being taken into consideration - Major Michelle Mendes being only one of the mental casualties, while others will continue to live unnoticed in secret torment.

Like journalists, hiding the truth, many of them will resort to drugs and booze, and will try to solve their problems with violence; many will batter their spouses and get into fights in bars and trouble with the law.

If there's any joke at all to be found in this mess, it's that there are millions of determined fighting Afghans against thousands of NATO troops. Just do the math.

=====

On another matter, but not exactly ... check out the video in the article entitled "Did we or didn't we?" - set foot on the moon, that is - at A Free Human blogspot.

Even "old fart astronauts" quickly resort to foul language, fist swinging and kicking when challenged verbally.

LIKE, GAG ME WITH A SPOON

Study links morning sickness to brighter kids

So says the headline of a CTV article.

Do they have no shame, these "scientists" sucking up research money to publish bogus papers when they should be looking for real jobs, or at least finding a cure for corporate greed?

As the New York Times and many, many other sources have clearly stated: "Morning sickness is very common". If the study has any merit at all, then we should be overrun by geniuses, yet all one has to do is observe the average politician to know we're not.

And then there's the global mean IQ of several points below "normal" that sounds suspiciously like a case for population reduction in the poor neighbourhoods.

Maybe poor women don't get morning sickness? Maybe it's only privileged drama queens who toss their tofu the minute the sperm hits the ovum, over-reacting to hormone changes the way they do to headaches, hangnails and bad hair days?

(Not to mention PMS, the most embarrassing "scientific" creation up to now, which shockingly, many women now use as an excuse for everything instead of examining their own attitudes and behaviours.)

Good grief! Making morning sickness into a status symbol! Will women now resort to sticking their fingers down their throats to keep up with the Joneses? Will the magnitude of the toss-up become even more of a one-upwomanship conversation than it already is?

Bulimics, created in much the same manner, should have no difficulty with the rigors of pregnancy at all. And their offspring, if they make it through the full gestation period, will be brilliant, no doubt, if somewhat neurotic.

I feel almost ashamed to tell you that I experienced no morning sickness with either of my children - except one tiny wave of after-dinner queasiness in my second pregnancy, which I took as a signal, not as a symptom and certainly not as a symbol of superior status.

All these years I thought my kids were smart; they certainly seemed smart, both with very impressive verbal skills and an amazingly high level of resourcefulness. How could I have been so stupid?

Hey, wait. I'm not stupid; I have a high IQ, if IQ means anything at all. And trust me, if my mother had suffered from morning sickness, I would have heard about it ad nauseum!

I'd hate to think this "study" was a deliberate attempt to discredit science in general, but it's doing a bang-up job of it.

Here's the give-away:

They noted that maternal IQ also played a role in the outcome.

No kidding, eh? Like, gag me with a spoon, as my obviously not very bright daughter used to say when mocking valley girls - you know, thinking she was swifter than they.

Image borrowed from http://redrose101307.blogspot.com/

Lots of Stuff

Canada - African Continent

Report says Canadian diplomats released

The plight of the two Canadians had received some high-level attention when Prime Minister Stephen Harper pressed their case during a February visit to the United Nations. As well, Amnesty International had publicly appealed for their release.

The two diplomats and their driver went missing after a visit to a gold mine in Niger and were reportedly being held by Al Qaeda-affiliated extremists. Ottawa had been tight-lipped on their case out of fear of jeopardizing their lives.

Amnesty International had weighed in on the case as well with a call for the release of the two men and their driver, along with four Europeans tourists whose abductions are blamed on the same group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed a series of attacks in the region in recent years, according to Amnesty International.

The above paragraphs are so important they were placed at the foot of the article so that they would be seen by people who scan quickly.

Africa beware! The US is hunting for "Al Qaeda"! And if they say you're infected with it, that means they've got more serious plans for you than AFRICOM suggests:

New World Order at home and abroad (YYC)

Harper's script at this point says: "Harper: Says nothing; does nothing." His earlier script said, "Harper: Please free the two Canadians."

Harper hasn't had many lines regarding Bashir Makhtal (See John Baird talking gibberish near the end of this CBC video - "If there's no evidence against this gentleman, as none has been presented to me, that we will wrap up our efforts." Wrap up what efforts?) and Abousfian Abdelrazik; hence they continue to rot where they are.

Note that Abdelrazik was completely cleared of any charges yet Canada continues to find reasons not to bring him home.

=====

Canada - Afghanistan

Mr. Iggy goes to Washington: The Holbrooke Afghanistan conference you can't go to

Especially if you're Afghani.

Senior Afghan official:

"So for whose benefit is this? All will claim it is for Afghans, but the Afghans are getting tired of an industry that is built on the claim that they are building the capacity of the Afghans while in reality they use Afghans to build their own capacity and generate more paper or add lines to their resumes..."

That would be Iggy, alright.

To be fair, several of the speakers, including Thier and Stewart, have spent significant time on the ground.

Oh, yeah, that's fair alright. So have our combat soldiers spent considerable time on the ground believing the big lie.

=====

Canada - RCMP

RCMP 'sorry' for errors in taser briefings

Force denies it lied or suppressed information in wake of Polish immigrant's 2007 death at Vancouver airport

The quotation marks should be around the word "errors", since it appears to be a euphemism for "lies". It seems the RCMP is expert at talking its way out of its own trouble but can't communicate with other people in trouble except via Taser.

=====

Canada - Latin America

Real News Video: Past is present in Latin America
At Summit Obama interested in looking forward, while many live the past every day - El Salvador report

Thanks to Ana of the Ottawa FMLN Committee for forwarding this message from the Real News reporter, Jesse Freeston:

Hello from Washington, DC. Not going to take up much of your time, but here is my video report from El Salvador in response to Barack Obama´s announcement at the past weekend´s "Summit of the Americas(minus Cuba)" that: "I didn´t come here to debate the past, I came here to deal with the future." This 'Year Zero' mindset may charm North Americans, but as I hope the video demonstrates, in El Salvador, the past in many ways IS the present, and any attempt to move forward without attempting to understand it is futile. So many people are still dealing with the same problems (state violence and poverty, mostly) that they were then, with the same root causes. The piece also takes on the idea that the arrival of leftist governments in Latin America is the result of an international movement, or ´Pink Tide´ as the papers call it. This approach often leaves out the historical experience of each one of these countries, which most people I spoke to (many of which were included in the video) believe is the only explanation for why the left has come to power.

In other words, US support for despots has been a catalyst for the very thing it fears: socialism. And what is Canada's interest in El Salvador?

Peter Kent - a former news media talking head and now Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas) - recently visited there "to ensure stability for Canadian investors in El Salvador, while guaranteeing a consistent stream of temporary migrant workers from El Salvador to Canada." (The Dominion)

Snarky aside: It's interesting how the mainstream media continues to be honoured with the highest offices in Canada: the last two Governors General, at least one senator (Laurier Lapierre) who has retired with a massive pension courtesy of the taxpayer, and of course rookie Parliamentarian Peter Kent.

It's such an obvious means of ensuring the media continue to support the global agenda.

======

Is it "Change" yet?

Obama moves to calm CIA fears over potential prosecution

Video: UN Special Rapporteur: Obama has violated international law

But bless his heart, with all the pressure he's still able to crack a joke about Cuba:

Mr. Obama has said he is unwilling to lift the embargo before Cuba begins to address the gravest human rights violations. (New York Times)

If Cuba ever does succumb to an IMF economy, Obama will label the inevitable Cuban resistance as terrorists, and allow the CIA to torture them.

=====

Srk Lanka

Sri Lankan war in endgame, 100,000 escape rebel zone

These people are going to refugee camps, just as did the Palestinians (See new article on Palestine by Samah Sabawi: Thinking outside the PLO box.)

And the west closes its eyes because the Sri Lankan government has joined the free market club and is IMF approved.

From Bloomberg:

The IMF loan was likely to be finalized in the next few weeks and there was no truth to rumors that the U.S. was trying to block the aid because of concerns over the government’s handling of its fight against Tamil rebels

Forbes: The Pessimistic IMF

"By any measure, this downturn represents by far the deepest global recession since the Great Depression," the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook. "All corners of the globe are being affected."

They must be very pleased with themselves, having blackmailed so many corners of the globe into joining the club - democracy not required.

Dying for free speech in Sri Lanka

If you are worried that Roxana Saberi might be treated badly in Iran, you should ask what happens to journalists in Sri Lanka, with a despotic government approved of by the US and Canada to the extent that we have placed the rebels it created on our official terrorist list.

Meanwhile the Tamil protest in Ottawa grows massive while the Harper government studiously ignores them.

=====

Israel

From Daniele in Montreal:

France Palestine Solidarity International petition to the UN General Assembly to set up a special international penal court to try Israeli war crimes, notably in the Gaza Strip

From JTA:

The Israeli military operated according to international law [in Gaza] and maintained a high level of professionalism and morals, its investigations found.

Imagine our surprise!

=====

Iran/Durban Conference

Iran Blames Israel and US for World Woes

Text of Ahmadinejad's speech

Xymphora: The Jews have lost it.

From John in Manitoba:
International Conference Against Racism: Behind the U.S. gov’t boycott

The threats, boycott and pressure to gut all that the Durban Conference achieved exposes,in the most graphic way possible, that despite the accomplishment of the election of a Black man to the U.S. presidency, the institutions of corporate power of U.S. imperialism remain opposed to every attempt at more fundamental change in the racist character of U.S. society.

Related: Greg Felton: Denial can’t diminish Durban’s message

Miss Dakota in Iran

Barack Obama is reportedly "dismayed" over the sentencing of Roxana Saberi to eight years in an Iran prison on a charge of spying for the US. It's hard to think of a young girl like that being locked away for so long. It makes you want to look hard at the facts being presented.

=====

UPDATE: 3:00 PM - From VOA:
Saberi has been visited in prison by her parents who say she is in good health. She has books to read, and she has the prospect of a "fair appeal".

And I take back my comment that you don't hear any criticism of the trial being held in secret. Hillary Clinton had the gall to complain that Saberi's trial was "not transparent" in the face of all the "not transparent" trials of Muslims.

=====

Why do the Iranians think there are US spies in their country? Well, for starters, let's look at the history. In 2000, then U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright said:

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs." (Wikipedia)

Yes, the good old democracy loving US of A overthrew an elected government and reinstated the monarchy. Why? Well it could have something to do with the fact that Iran's government had just nationalized the oil industry.

Eventually the Shah was kicked out and elections were held. But if you Google the words "velvet revolution" you'll find that the US has never stopped trying to foment internal dissent in Iran.

(Not to mention that Iran is crawling with Israeli spies as well, and all that money that the US has funnelled into Israel - much of which has no doubt returned home in purchases of components for nuclear weapons - and all the saber rattling may well be in order to keep Iran intimidated and distracted from internal matters.)

No one could be more velvet than an itty bitty pretty Miss Dakota. But six years is a long time to be researching a book, Iran must have thought. Besides, why was her father living in the US? Could it be for the same reason as many other Iranians who were monarchists and had to flee along with the Shah?

Is it coincidental that Saberi was arrested in January and in February the Persian press comes out with this: US dropping Iran Velvet Revolution plans? Notice that the article is well substantiated by comments from America's own news media.

Put it all together and it's little wonder that Obama is making conciliatory noises. And you certainly don't hear any criticism from the west over the fact that the trial was held in secret, not when the US holds secret trials and so does Canada and the UK, and secret trials were (are) held in Afghanistan for former Guantanamo inmates, all of these countries being partners in crime *.

You think Iran is evil for being paranoid about spies? Remember what Canada did when it felt threatened by Japan? We locked up all the Japanese residents in internment camps with no trials at all!

As an aside, four words in this paragraph in the Persian press article stand out sharply:

ABC news also exposed that Washington has been secretly funding and directing Jundullah militants to "stage deadly guerrilla raids inside the Islamic Republic, kidnap Iranian officials and execute them on camera" all as part of a "programmatic objective to overthrow the Iranian government".

People who have suspected that the much publicized beheadings carried out by so-called enemies of the west's "freedoms" were actually staged by the CIA/MI6 will know which words I'm talking about.

Reza Saberi told National Public Radio (NPR) that his daughter was tricked into making incriminating statements.

Tricked, not tortured like arrested Muslims tend to be everywhere else. And she's been allowed to talk several times to her parents on the phone.

Since there is a general respect for women in Iran and Ahmadinejad himself has issued orders that Saberi be well and fairly treated, and in light of all the reasons Iran has been given by the west and Israel to suspect she is a spy, I don't feel inclined to worry too much about Miss Dakota. She'll have plenty of time to get her book written.

=========================

* This just in from John:

HAITIANS OVERWHELMINGLY REJECT ELECTORAL SHAM

Read more about it here: More observers than voters

Haiti is yet another country where the US has overthrown a democratically elected government and where Canada does the bidding of the US.

The US and Canada undermined Haiti’s democratically elected government for years before helping organize its overthrow in 2004. They then offered extensive support and training to an unelected interim regime that oversaw a bloody campaign of repression aimed at Haiti’s majority political movement, Fanmi Lavalas. Effectively prevented from participating in the elections that finally took place in 2006, Fanmi Lavalas is again being excluded from senate elections scheduled for 19 April 2009.

Kudos to the good sense and courage of Haitians! The rest of us should be taking a page from that book!

=========================

Heavy Stuff

Two Readers have sent in so much food for thought that I can take the day off to do some research. Tomorrow I'll be talking about Roxana Saberi's sentencing in Iran, among other things.

From Timmy Timbit:

Regarding this quote from Iggy: [See Friday's entry under the heading: Canada]

"And remember the next time gasoline prices rise, due to the predicted "oil shortage", that Ignatieff said there are 100 years
worth of oil deposits in Alberta."

Iggy is either ignorant or disingenuous take your pick. As the peak oilers point out, when considering the state of world oil supplies, its just as important or even more important to consider how accessible the oil is rather than just the total amount of oil that we believe lies under the surface.

Economics dictates that the easy to produce oil near the surface, under pressure, of low sulfur content (easy and cheap to refine) and situated in relatively big oil fields located close to civilization is naturally cheapest and therefore the first to be developed and pumped. As that oil dries up, more and more money and energy has to be spent on secondary recover techniques to get at the remaining oil in those depleted wells and to explore for new oil further afield to find the oil to replace the lost oil from the formerly productive fields now in depletion and at the same time to allow for an overall increase in production to meet an increasing world demand for oil.

True the demand for oil has dropped with the current recession/depression, but historically the trend shows on average an overall increase in world demand for oil year by year. That means new oil fields have to be found and developed to provide oil in sufficient quantities to allow (on average) for an overall increase in annual production while at the same time also making up for the oil production lost by depletion of old, worn out fields. When the amount of conventional oil from traditional oil fields isn't enough to cut the mustard any more, then we get into raping the planet by developing, at horrendous environmental cost, oil from places like the tar sands.

Suppose I boast to my friends that after winning the 649 I am so rich I don't have to work any more because I now have $5,000,000 in winnings socked away in term deposits at my bank. Now suppose according to the terms of the agreement with the bank, that money is locked in and I can only withdraw $500 in any one month and yet my living expenses amount to $1,000 per month. Just knowing I have $5,000,000 dollars in the bank doesn't do me any good when I can't make a car payment or pay the plumber to fix a burst pipe in my house because I can only get at $500 of my $5,000,000 fortune.

It's fine to boast about having 100 years of oil deposits, but if we need to pump 5000 barrels a month to meet demand and we fine that we can only get at 3,000 barrrels due to the remoteness of the fields, difficulty with the extraction process, environmental constraints etc. having all that oil sitting in the ground isn't really going to mean one hell of a lot.

Why does oil peak? Why doesn't it suddenly run out?

Oil companies have, naturally enough, extracted the easier-to-reach, cheap oil first. The oil pumped first was on land, near the surface, under pressure, light and 'sweet' (meaning low sulfur content) and therefore easy to refine. The remaining oil is more likely to be off-shore, far from markets, in smaller fields and of lesser quality. It therefore takes ever more money and energy to extract, refine and transport. Under these conditions, the rate of production inevitably drops. Furthermore, all oil fields eventually reach a point where they become economically, and energetically, no longer viable. If it takes the energy of a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil, then further extraction is pointless, no matter what the price of oil.

Also, is the Iggy one talking about 100 years worth of oil at current consumption rates? I ask because, as mentioned above, the historical trend is for oil consumption to increase year by year in an exponential growth pattern. And as retired Physics Prof. Albert Bartlett points out in his talk on exponential growth and resource consumption (watch it here) even small but continuous annual increases in consumption of a resource will become tremendously large increases over relatively short periods of time.

As Prof Bartlett also points out, it is not uncomon for politicians and "officialdom" when addressing matters of resource availability (coal, oil, electrical generating capacity etc.) to make statements like, "We have enough of resource X to last 500 years at current consumption rates." However when you look at the historical trends you find that consumption of resource X has been growing on average at Y% per year for the last 30 years, and when you do the math and factor in an allowance for increasing consumption by Y% each year you find that maybe resource X that was going to last 500 years will likely really only last 50 years (just pulling those numbers out of a hat to use as an example).

=====

YYC: Readers, you decide. One thing that occurred to me is that while, historically, oil consumption has indeed increased, more and more of the general population are seriously starting to conserve on gasoline and fossil fueled electricity because of rising prices. Not to mention a reduction in the use of materials created with petroleum, such as synthetic fabrics and plastic bags. Nuclear energy is on the increase, in spite of Obama carefully not mentioning that, preferring to talk instead about wind and solar power because they sound so "green".

Mind you, there is already a campaign building against wind power.

It also seems to me that if no alternative is found for oil in certain aspects of industry - such as weapons manufacturing and deployment, there may actually be no hesitation in using the equivalent of a barrel of oil - in the form of nuclear energy - to get themselves a barrel of oil. When it comes to "defence", cost is no object.

And by the way, Iggy is nothing if not "disingenuous".

Image borrowed from the Star Bulletin
=====

John writes:

[Here is] an interesting backgrounder to what and where our armed forces are occupied, in the past and presently:

Canada: In Service To The Pentagon And NATO At Home And Abroad

Canada is the only nation in the world whose mainland borders three of the world's five oceans: The Arctic, The Atlantic and the Pacific. The United States only secured access to the Arctic Ocean with the acquisition of non-contiguous Alaska from Russia in 1867 and Russia can only access the Atlantic through the Barents and Norwegian Seas. The three oceans in question are exactly those in and over which Russia has recently resumed strategic air patrols and naval and submarine deployments starting in late 2007 after a hiatus of almost twenty years. Should East-West tensions parallel - or exceed - those of the Cold War era Canada will be on several frontlines and is now being actively prepared for just such an eventuality.

YYC: It's all about "shock therapy". We may be gradually being set up for that "generated crisis" Joe Biden talked about, one that will be sufficient to scare North Americans into the belief that their safety depends on accepting a corporate (fascist) government with ubiquitous surveillance, home invasions and pre-dawn roundups, giving up on health care, making high schools and universities into trade schools and producers of cannon fodder, beefing up prisons, compulsory military service ...

Common sense should tell us that there never was and never will be an all-out confrontation with Russia. The only countries the US ever goes after are ones that can't defend themselves and/or have not yet entered the "free market".

This article is well worth saving as a resource.

New World Order at home and abroad

From the USA with love to Africa: AFRICOM

This has got to be the most disgustingly duplicitous statement to come out of the Obama administration so far:

The foreign policy objectives of the Obama administration in Africa are rooted in security, political, economic and humanitarian interests, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton told a U.S. Senate committee January 13.

Did the machine behind the US presidency appoint a "black" man to the highest office so that nobody would believe that its plans for his ancestral country could be less than humanitarian? And did they choose a woman to explain the process for similar reasons?

Well, here's a woman, Cynthia McKinney, who doesn't waste words expressing the true purpose of AFRICOM.

And here are a "black" man and woman, Danny Glover and Nicole Lee, who have some things to say about it too.

Barack Obama is himself a front for long term plans for US militarization of the whole planet in order to exploit natural resources belonging to people who don't have "white" skin. In other words, he's a house negro! So were (are) Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

The USA

AFRICOM is a component of a number of recommendations for the New World Order that the elder George Bush enthused about, and whose administration spawned the Project for a New American Century - PNAC which made it clear in a Sept. 2000 report entitled: "Rebuilding America's Defences - Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century"[PDF format] that the process would be long unless some catastrophic event occurred, such as "a new Pearl Harbour":

From Wikipedia:

The attack, and especially the 'surprise' nature of it, were both factors in changing U.S. public opinion from the isolationist position of the mid-1930s to support for direct participation in the war.

Several months before 9/11, Paul Wolfowitz delivered a speech at West Point that dwelt heavily on the story of Pearl Harbour - and literally spilled the beans that a similar "surprise" was on its way.

Since then, American hegemony has grown in a gruesome fashion, and the men behind Barack Obama will expand its gory reach.

Is it "Change" yet? Only in that the old plans are growing bigger feet. Any country with natural resources and non-white skin will be forced in one way or another to cough up the wealth that would have relieved its own internal poverty.

Canada

That's not to say that even ordinary Albertans are certain of a share of the financial rewards from having its ecosystem destroyed in order to feed the US appetite for oil. They seem to be over an oil barrel - if they claim more of a share, the threat is that investors will withdraw, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Harper's oil pals in Alberta will get rich. And don't imagine that Ignatieff is not on board with this as well, in spite of how he turns on the smarm about the environment and the effects on aboriginal health. Pay attention to his utter and complete awe of the whole Tar Sands project and the "power" it will bring to Canada. That is what will take precedence over any human consideration.

If Ignatieff cared about First Nations people don't you think he'd be fighting to prevent the 2010 Olympics from dispossessing them from their land. But the majority of Canadians aren't asking him about that because they "believe".

That's mind control in action, right here in so-called staid and practical Canada.

And remember the next time gasoline prices rise, due to the predicted "oil shortage", that Ignatieff said there are 100 years worth of oil deposits in Alberta.

The sad truth is that no ordinary folk will benefit from the global spread of "free trade". We are all meant to become slaves to the machine. A case in point:

Medicare cuts in Alberta

Liepert says he will not rule out tax increases to help pay for medical services. He also says some medical services will likely be dropped from coverage.

But he says Albertans will then have the option of broadening their group medical insurance to cover treatments that are no longer covered by the province.

The UK

Watch and listen to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown - the man many Brits thought would bring relief from Toady Blair - as he compulsively repeats over and over again the phrase "New World Order".

And the majority of people who rely on mainstream news still think that term is the concoction of a bunch of loonie lefties.

And then look at what's going on in the UK. For one thing, it's home to the most surveilled population in the world. One might think it's due to fear of terror attacks, but have a look at the similarities of July 7 transit bombings with 9/11. Or read about them here.

114 Arrested Before Protest in UK

The force said police believed some of those arrested were linked to a group of protesters who have set up "climate camps" at other power plants, at Heathrow Airport in 2007 and in central London during this month's G-20 summit.

Such protests have been peaceful.

At the foot of this article is a tourism ad entitled: 10 things to do in London. Shouldn't that be 10 things NOT to do in London?

For instance, here's something not to do - don't take photos for your vacation album. Police will force you to delete them - to prevent "terrorism" - or maybe just because they can.

They can also kill you and pretty much get away with it:

Public Enemy Number One
Nearly four years after the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, another man has died after an unprovoked attack by police, and no officer held to account. So, who guards the guards?

Here are videos of the police assault on Ian Tomlinson, who died of his injuries, plus many other links to relevant news items and videos.

And more here on the subject of police brutality in London:

G20 protest videos: Growing catalogue of evidence against police

There's an ad in the side panel that offers self-protection training against "someone who violently attacks you, your wife or kids." Looks like that "someone" could be the police.

=====

And back to the USA

Meanwhile, the US is well on its way to winning the surveillance competition:

Obama Administration Claims “Sovereign Immunity” in Attempt to Dismiss Lawsuit Against NSA over Domestic Surveillance

... the “sovereign immunity” claim is “of breathtaking scope—never before advanced even by the Bush administration—that the PATRIOT Act bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is ‘willful disclosure’ of the illegally intercepted communications.”